About

Dancing Ink Productions (DIP) is a full-service creative company that develops cultural relations solutions, business strategy, immersive narrative and mixed-media, mixed-reality content including games, conferences for a new global culture and economy in the Imagination Age.

DIP works across multiple social media platforms and within virtual worlds to introduce organizations to the idea of sharing meaningful ideas and collaborating on cost-cutting, solutions to amplify creativity and innovation while bringing together geographically dispersed members of the evolving global workforce, culture and economy. For clients taking their first steps in the digital culture, we streamline the experience and create strategic plans for participation.  For experienced clients, such as IBM, the American University in Cairo, Manpower Inc. and Linden Lab, we collaborate on identifying and sharing a brand’s core narrative through creative mixed-media including data visualization and documentaries.

DIP works with governments and organizations to contextualize the evolving culture of the Internet providing cultural intelligence and strategic foreign policy guidance toward and a fundamental understanding of the how culture is shifting in the Internet era.

CULTURE & CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE
Our work on the evolution of a new global culture includes work with worldwide universities, think-tanks and non-profits (such as the American University in Cairo and the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs), researching, analyzing and chronicling the powerful transformative potential of the Internet and virtual worlds toward richer, more nuanced cultural dialog.

ECONOMY
In our work on the new global economy, we help introduce the concept of virtual worlds to business enterprise clients and document the story of what has been accomplished (for clients including Manpower Inc. and IBM) through mixed media deliverables including white papers, documentary videos and other graphic materials. DIP also creates strategic plans for other business enterprise clients looking to cut costs . We design and produce virtual conferences and we teach business enterprise clients how to incorporate virtual strategies into their organizations toward cost-saving and collaboration.

GAMES and VIRTUAL WORLDS
DIP works with organizations to develop creative, meaningful narrative in games and virtual worlds toward vibrant community and culture and fundamental understanding of cultural intelligence in the physical world. DIP works with game and virtual world development firms worldwide including Linden Lab.

For more information about how we can work with your organization, please see Services.

Clients, collaborators and strategic partners include

DIP has been featured in a variety of mediums, including The New York Times, BBC Radio, The UK Guardian, UPI, Press TV, Time.com, New World Notes, the Huffington Post and more.  For a complete list please see News & Press.

Current writings, news other relevant information can be found Dancing Ink Productions’ blog, “Dispatches from the Imagination Age.”

Principals

Rita J. King
is Innovator-in-Residence at IBM’s Analytics Virtual Center, a Security Futurist at the Aspen Institute, a Senior Fellow at two think-tanks: The Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York City, and the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress in Washington DC. She is the Creative Director of the Imagination Age and CEO of Dancing Ink Productions. Her essays, various writings and works of art have been commissioned, published and exhibited globally. She thinks of technology as a prism held up to the bright beam of the imagination to create a new global culture and economy. Her work has been profiled by CNN, The New York Times, Wired, MSNBC, NPR and the Christian Science Monitor. In her seven years as an award-winning investigative reporter, Rita’s primary focus was reporting on corporate culture. This work culminated in her report, “Big, Easy Money: Disaster Profiteering on the American Gulf Coast,” followed by a civil rights quest with the president of the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development across the Deep South. Rita is a frequent international speaker on the subject of meaningful creative collaboration, ROI in virtual worlds and the transformational social and economic implications of a new global culture and economy in the Imagination Age.

Read Rita J. King’s extended bio

Joshua S. Fouts

Joshua S. Fouts is Chief Global Strategist of Dancing Ink Productions, a company that develops business strategy, immersive narrative and mixed-media, mixed-reality content, games, conferences and other events for a new global culture and economy in the Imagination Age. His primary focus is on cultural intelligence working with organizations to develop quality game and virtual world narrative toward vibrant community and culture in the physical world. He is recognized as the world’s leading expert on Digital Diplomacy. His most recent project, Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds, which he co-directed with Rita J. King, explored how virtual worlds can be used to enable nuanced understanding between and around Islamic culture.

Read Joshua S. Fouts’ extended bio

Fellows

Mencius Watts (aka John Fillwalk)
Artist in Residence

John Fillwalk (aka Mencius Watts in Second Life) is digital artist and associate professor of Electronic Art at Ball State University, where he works and instructs in a variety of media including high-definition video, installation, imaging, and interactive art. He also serves as the director of the Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts and Animation – an interdisciplinary and collaborative art and research center producing innovative digital artforms. He received his MFA from the University of Iowa in Intermedia and Video Art and has since received numerous grants, awards, commissions and fellowships. His video and installation work – as
well as interdisciplinary collaborations have been exhibited extensively at international festivals, galleries and museums.

See recent blog posts about Mencius’s work here:
Dancing Ink Productions Illustrious Artist-in-Residence

The Copper Robot Shows some Serious Human Consciousness

Mencius Watt’s work is also featured in the graphic book from the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project.